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Intel's disruption is now complete

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Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#211

Post by adrianmonk »

notSupplied wrote: post #92
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #20

As someone who worked on Intel's phone chip: we definitely didn't win it. We fucked it up twelve ways to Sunday. Why: giant egos. There were turf wars between Austin, Santa Clara and Israel over who would design it, and the team that won out had long since lost its best principle engineers and had no clue how to spin the architecture to meet the design win. Otellini's hindsight hedge is pure spin: we knew the landing…

I have a theory about why turf wars like this happens: the more successful and wealthy an entity, the greater opportunity there is for a manager to take wealth instead of make it. When you’re scrappy and broke, the only path to success is to make the company successful. When the company is rich and multitudinous, an individual can gain more from politics and turf wars rather than actually trying to push an already hi…

You can include wealthy nations in that list of entities. It's not just the leaders but also the individual workers.

This is not a slam against people from wealthy nations. I am one of them. I just think it's a danger to be aware of.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#212

Post by hyperpallium2 »

supernova87a wrote: post #127

Maybe this is a bit of a side topic, and I'm a layman, but I'm interested to know why the M1 chip is able to perform so surprisingly better? And why Intel or others can't just come up with a similar design, if it's clear from the specs/die images what's being done? Is it years of work to figure out the placement of CPU/GPU/memory units on the die, routings, and come up with new instruction sets? I imagine this wasn't…

Apart from cache, anandtech notes https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de...

  What really defines Apple’s Firestorm CPU core from other designs in the industry is just the sheer width of the microarchitecture.
"Width" enables greater parallel execution of instructions.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#213

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

pinewurst wrote: post #60
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I completely agree. But success and innovation are orthogonal, and the original question was about innovation.

But whatever real innovation underlay Xeon Phi/KNx was performed two decades ago. Current Intel is only capable of SKUsmanship - minutely partitioning function for projected max margins. Edit: Also too, remember that KNx was really an attempt to salvage Intel's failed Larrabee GPU effort.

> Also too, remember that KNx was really an attempt to salvage Intel's failed Larrabee GPU effort.

I do, and I don't think you know that the first "Knights" project was simply a rename of Larrabee. Same exact product. It was called Knights ... Landing I think? Then it became Xeon Phi.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#214

Post by jeffbee »

micv wrote: post #188
eulers_secret wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but Intel's 14nm is what Apple gets to compete against today, right now. Intel's 10nm node is out, I'm typing this on one right now. It's competitive in single-core performance against what we've seen from the M1. Graphics and multi-core it gets beat though... Or do you mean what Apple used to use? (edit: the following is incorrect) It's true Apple never used an Intel 10nm part. EDIT: I was wrong! Apple has used an…

I'm using a MacBook Pro with an Intel 10nm part in it. The 4 port 13" MBP still comes with one. I think the MacBook Air might have had a 10nm part before it went ARM, too. There are still no 10nm parts for the desktop or the high-end/high-TDP laptops anyway afaik.

Tiger Lake is objectively the fastest thing in any laptop you can buy, regardless of whether its TDP is as high as others. You're right about the lack of desktop parts, though.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#215

Post by regimeld »

systemvoltage wrote: post #189

The entire world has their eggs in one basket - Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Say whatever about Intel, I am hoping that they get back on their feet in next few years with 5nm manufacturing. Since when is competition and choice a bad thing? If you're a chip design firm and you have a 8-month backlog to get your masks made at TSMC, what do you do then? TSMC can be world's best fab but we need to address…

Completely agree. The world's supply of semiconductors is dependent, in some ways, on the benevolence of the CCP. TSMC is like Arakkis. We need to diversify the supply chain.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#216

Post by SoSoRoCoCo »

baybal2 wrote: post #62
SoSoRoCoCo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they have been a commodity for a long time. Rephrased, the discussion is similar to, "Will GE make a comeback in the refrigerator market?" Intel isn't going anywhere, they have many, many big customers to satisfy who simply cannot shift to ARM due to ROIs <=0. And after 30+ years of this, I also don' think there's anything new or revolutionary in silicon fabrication on the horizon. I stopped getting excited a…

> And after 30+ years of this, I also don' think there's anything new or revolutionary in silicon fabrication on the horizon. Why so? Few more material, and device generations are on the way. Litho has went through more generation changes in the last 1 decade, than in any previous one. Whole new device classes are on the way: optics on silicon, new memory, logic in the backend, and logic on package. Semiconductor eng…

This is my "640K should be enough comment", but we've reached the limits of optical fabrication with ~2nm. And really, it is just smaller transistors. Yes, that glibly does a disservice to the process engineers making this miracle happen, but I can get excited about "look, smaller transistors!" only so many times in my lifetime. :)

> optics on silicon,

Yep! That and quantum and post VNeumann architectures. There's some weird shit on the horizon that I probably won't live to see in household products, but I don't think it will be be optical deposition by layer. It might, who knows, I"m officially talking out my arse now. :)

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#217

Post by boucher »

reaperducer wrote: post #131
skohan wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I remember Xserve! But if anything it seems like it was evidence that Apple wasn't really able to "get" the server market, where hardware is a commodity and price and compatibility are basically the only concern. Not to say that couldn't change, especially if their own processors had a big advantage in price/performance, but there hasn't been a whole lot of evidence that they have what it takes to succeed in thi…

While most of your points are true, I will quibble with this: there hasn't been a whole lot of evidence that they have what it takes to succeed in this space. Does it matter? In 2006 and 2007 there were legions of pundits, columnists, and "experts" who said the same thing about Apple making a telephone. I wonder if there's a market for a server optimized for iOS builds. Cram as many Mx chips and possible into a racka…

I think the pundits in 2007 were obviously wrong to anyone who followed Apple. I mean, perhaps you wouldn't have predicted the level of success, but it was clear that the iPod was all the experience they needed to pull off the iPhone, and it was also clear to anyone who used phones that if they could get the internet to work well there was a big market.

In contrast, I would say there's very little evidence Apple can pull off a majorly successful server play. It's not impossible, and I think the trends are potentially in their favor, but it definitely doesn't play to their strengths. Apple's biggest strengths are very consumer oriented, and the trade-offs they typically make are not great for an enterprise crowd (expensive hardware, willingness to abandon legacy compatibility, etc.).

There's probably a smallish market for very specialized servers that Apple could fill well, and maybe they will. Long term maybe that could translate to a wider market if they really make an effort. But I think it's at the very least a significantly longer time horizon than the iPhone.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#218

Post by 5d749d7da7d5 »

Kapura wrote: post #77

I found this very interesting, and it seems a similar thing is happening to Intel in the DIY/gaming space right now. For a long time, the Intel i5/i7/i9 were the processors of choice for gaming, but AMD's Ryzen line has been making remarkable inroads, with the recently released Ryzen 5000 series boasting performance that competes or tops Intel's top chips in the space, and generally with lower power draw to boot. I'm…

>the Intel i5/i7/i9 were the processors of choice for gaming, but AMD's Ryzen line has been making remarkable inroads

I just checked my go-to hardware recommendation site, Logical Increments[0], and not a single Intel CPU makes the list. AMD everything.

[0] https://www.logicalincrements.com/

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#219

Post by Invictus0 »

whack wrote: post #194

This is a controversial opinion, but I don't agree with the idea that big corporations should make an entry into every single adjacent market. If the company has core expertise and advantages that can deliver a decisive win in a known-lucrative market, then it's a no brainer. But if that's not the case, why run around chasing shadows everywhere, instead of focusing on harvesting the markets where you're already winni…

No company operates this way. Companies are full of people optimizing for their own fortunes, and the company going under is not and will never be a part of those plans.

Re: Intel's disruption is now complete

#220

Post by ksec »

>It was not until 2005 that Grove retired from Intel.

October 2007, CFO Andy Bryant Promoted to Operations Chief.

September 2009, CTO Pat Gelsinger left Intel.

2010, CEO Paul Otellini started work on Intel Custom Foundry.

July 2011, Andy Bryant was appointed Vice Chairman on Intel's board.

May 2012, Andy Bryant became Chairman of the Board.

May 2013, The Board appointed Brian Krzanich as new CEO.

And the more recent event you should all be fairly familiar.

Other than that, If I could sum up Intel's problem in one word, it would be Inertia.

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